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Today, we're honored to be guest posting over at Cache Mama's Classroom!  Lori, the blog's author, hosts Wish List Wednesdays and she asked us to blog about something on our wish lists for little ones.  So, click the button below to see what we would wish for today!  

Substitute Teacher #3

Happy Saturday, everyone!  Our third Spring Break Substitute Teacher is the awesome Julie, one half of the Dynamic Duo from Teacher 2 Mom!  Thanks so much, Julie for being here today!

Hi Everyone! This is Julie from teacher-2-mom! Kate and I are so excited to be posting on Frogs, Bees, & Under the Seas. We LOVE their amazing blog! I have already been telling all of my friends to check them out! So thank you ladies for giving us this GREAT opportunity!!

Today I'm going to be posting on movement and learning. I am a former first grade teacher turned stay at home mama of one adorable 16 month old. However during my teaching years I also taught dance. Since movement is so important (and necessary!) for a bunch of 6 year olds to do OFTEN throughout the day, many of my lessons had fun moves in them to help them learn.

 Every morning around 9:15 you could walk by my classroom and hear some funky songs playing. If you peeked your head in you'd see a classroom full of first graders all dancing their hearts out to a CHOREOGRAPHED dance that we practiced every day. Then you might also see their goofy teacher (aka me!) up at the front getting as much into the moves as them! Of course you don't have to choreograph your dance to counts of 8, however, I felt it really taught my students coordination and muscle memory. Also, it totally woke them up and got them ready to learn.

 We would learn one new 8 count a week to ensure we were always doing our "personal best" and so late or absent students could join in on the fun too. This was a TREAT for my students and so it made it easy to manage their EXCITEMENT when it was time to dance. At the end of the year at our Evening of Authors night, we would SURPRISE the parents by doing our dance. Let me tell ya, they would die when they saw it! The students would look awesome and they really new the dance and you could tell on each of their faces that they LOVED it too.

When teaching various phonics lessons such as the -oo sound found in soon, we would start at one end of the classroom and sing our -oos as loud (not too loud!) as we could in a sing song voice while dancing in a flowy way across to the other side of the room. This taught the students that your moves can be changed according to the song or the rhythm. It also helped them remember that sound when they were spelling and reading.

Another daily movement we did were squats and jumping jacks as we said aloud our math practice of counting to 100 and then counting by 2's then counting by 5's and then counting by 10's. Once again it got our minds working and we were sure learning in a FUN way.

You can easily include movement in whatever you are teaching. Whether it's the sound of a letter to your 4 year old or the water cycle to your 2nd graders, movement is a fun and motivating way to teach your children and/or students.

I DARE you to try it today. :) You just might find yourself having way too much fun then intended and I know that your children or students will love it.

 Happy Dancing!!

Substitute Teacher #2

Hi, ya'll!  Our second Spring Break Substitute Teacher is the sweet Sarah from First Grader at Last!  Many thanks, Sarah, for being here today!

Hi everyone!  It's me, Sarah {a.k.a. Mrs. Cooley}, from First Grader...at Last and I am so excited to be doing my very first guest blogging post ever at Frogs, Bees, and Under the Seas! 

You know how sometimes the best lessons you ever teach are usually the ones that are spur of the moment, and completely unplanned?  You just think, "Hmm....this could be fun?!" So you give it a try, and it is Awesome {with a capital A!}  Well, that is exactly how Elevator Math Magic was created in my classroom!  The inspiration started when I read Elevator Magic by Stuart J. Murphy:

I was just looking for a a literature tie-in to introduce subtraction!  In this book, a little boy rides an elevator to all these wild and crazy floors.  One floor has a bank that is also a farm.  One floor has a racetrack, and another is a hard-rock candy store!  The kids thought the floors were so funny!  Each time the little boy got on the elevator to go to a new floor, he had to figure out how many floors down he needed to go, and it shows how he uses subtraction to figure it out! 

The kids got more into this story than I expected, so *Bing!* I immediately thought that everyone should create their own floor, and we would make a GIANT building full of our own floors, and we could do our own elevator {math} magic!  First, everyone brainstormed a cool floor.  Some of our floors o' fun:

Maddox's Make Up Salon!  You can also find wigs here.

We also have Andrew's Piggy Ride Place and Griffin's Croc Swamp.

The first floor is Ryan's Monster Truck Track, and the second floor is Carson's Science Discovery Room! 

So, after the kids designed the floors, I glued them together with the hopes of hanging them from the ceiling...but it was WAY too long! Check this out {can't even fit it all in the picture}

We also made an elevator button panel, so we could press the buttons of the floors we want to visit: 

We used our building and elevator button panel to answer addition/subtraction word problems!  {Mrs. Frizzle went to Erin's Science Book Room.  She wanted to go to Carson's Discovery Room next.  How many floors down will Mrs. Frizzle travel?}  For some of the problems, the kids acted them out using the building as a giant number line, and for other problems, they all sat around the building and wrote number sentences on white boards.  The kids are still talking about "elevator math"--and a few of my "math rockstars" are begging me to put it in a center so they can make up their own problems.  {Um, absolutely!} 

Just a fun and unplanned idea that I wanted to share with all of you wonderful people!  Have a wonderful rest of the school year, summer is just around the corner! 

Spring Break Substitute Teacher #1

Hey, friends!  So sorry we have been MIA this week!  All of us are on Spring Break and taking little trips all through the week.  But, never fear...we have lined up some AWESOME "Substitute Teachers" for our blog! :)


First, we have the gracious & gifted Gladys from Once Upon a Time in First Grade.  Thank you so much, Gladys, for being our first Substitute Teacher!  So, take it away, Gladys...

Hey y'all I'm Gladys from Once Upon a Time in First Grade...and I'm soooo happy to be here!

Don't you just LOVE the cute girls from Frogs, Bees and Under the Seas?!

I love their cute blog, their awesome ideas, and their terrific fashion sense! (Don't tell me you all haven't noticed how lovely they always look in their pics?! Because I know you have!)

So...when these lovely gals contacted me and asked if I would kindly write a guest post for them..(while they were away, enjoying their much deserved Spring Break). I jumped at the opportunity! I feel so excited to be guest posting on such a lovely blog!

 (Thank you, girls!)

So...not too long ago I introduced my firsties to Fact Families. I have been introducing Fact Families this way for a few years now...and my firsties love it! I usually begin by reading them a story about families...we discuss how family members feel about each other, how they take care of each other, and how they help each other. I then proceed to introduce these little characters...

These little people are my "fact family"...they were created to help my firsties understand the whole concept of Fact Families.

 I always introduce each character...as Daddy, Mommy, and Baby. Each of these characters have a number assigned to them (sticky notes with numbers written on them)...the biggest number goes to Daddy, the middle number to Mommy, and the smallest number to Baby. When the individual number sentences are created I always explain how in addition sentences the biggest number (that is "Daddy") always goes at the end of the equation and in subtraction sentences "Daddy" goes at the beginning of the equation. I also explain that families are protective of each other and they don't allow strangers to come live with them...so when my firsties are writing or solving their fact families they know that they can only use these 3 numbers..."strange" numbers are not allowed!

And let me tell y'all...they really get it! It's always fun to walk around when they are solving their fact family number sentences...and hear them talk about these cute characters...and how no "strangers" are allowed in their family! Ha! Hilarious!

Here are some more pictures of my little characters:

Daddy

Mommy

Baby

Aren't they cute?!

(okay...so maybe I'm a little biased because I drew them...ha!)

You can also find other fun fact family activities on Sarah's blog  First Grader...At Last! and on Lindsey's blog  The Teacher Wife. I really recommend you check them out...these ladies are superb!

Well thank you everyone for reading my little blurb on fact families...

I hope you enjoyed it!

Thank you Daphne, Heather, and Jennifer for having me as a guest blogger...it was lots of fun!

  I hope y'all will come and visit me at Once Upon a Time in First Grade soon...until then...

Toodles!

♥♥♥